Tag: Ryan

Reince Priebus (right) has been appointed as the new White House Chief of Staff, whilst Stephen Bannon (left) has been appointed Chief Strategist.

Yesterday, President-elect Donald J. Trump announced his first staff appointments since his election victory, appointing Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus as his Chief of Staff, and appointing Stephen Bannon as his Chief Strategist. These two were both thought to be strongly in the running for a position in the Trump administration and therefore their appointment is not much of a surprise, however, that Trump chose them to fulfil these roles does suggest a fair bit about the direction that his Presidency will take.

Throughout the election campaign, Trump spoke of his disdain for Washington insiders, and pledged that he would ‘drain the swamp’ of special interests and D.C. insiders. However, the appointment of Reince Priebus to such a key position flies straight in the face of this. Priebus is arguably the ultimate Washington (or at least GOP) insider. He has been chair of the RNC since 2011, and previously was RNC general counsel and chair of the Wisconsin Republican Party, with his work for the GOP in Wisconsin meaning he has strong connections with the likes of Paul Ryan, the Speaker of the House of Representatives. Given Trump’s rhetoric around ‘draining the swamp’ of political insiders, you would have thought that the selection of Priebus to such a key role would have provoked anger amongst some of Trump’s most keen supporters — and you would be correct. However, the selection of Priebus could well have done a fair amount the placate those parts of the GOP who are extremely wary about the prospect of a Trump Presidency, given the extreme rhetoric that characterised his campaign. The feeling amongst moderate Republicans may well be that Priebus will add some moderation into Trump’s thinking, whilst his excellent relationships with Congressional leadership should help the Trump administration get their legislation through Congress — as long as it isn’t too extreme that is. Some have likened his role to that of Andy Card who served as White House Chief of Staff for five years during the George W. Bush administration.

Whilst he will have disappointed some of his most keen supporters with the hiring of party insider Priebus as Chief of Staff, Trump then hired the opposite for the role of Chief Strategist: Steve Bannon. Bannon is the Executive Chairman of Breitbart News, the conservative news website, which aligns with the extreme ‘alt-right’ in much of its coverage. The appointment of Bannon is likely to worry much of the Republican establishment as he is an avowed enemy of Paul Ryan, and has led a campaign through Breitbart to unseat him as Speaker of the House. In addition, and very worryingly, he has long been criticised for pandering to white supremacism and the ‘alt-right’.

Media coverage of Bannon’s appointment has variously described him as being along the lines of a ‘right-wing provocateur’, and ‘anti-establishment populist’. Whilst these descriptions are both true, they don’t go far enough by any means. Following news of the appointment, John Weaver tweeted, “The racist, fascist extreme right is represented footsteps from the Oval Office. Be very vigilant America.” Weaver is an experienced Republican strategist who held key roles on John Kasich campaign for the Presidency, and on John McCain’s campaigns in 2000 and 2008, so not simply a diehard liberal with a trivial complaint — Bannon genuinely is an extreme right-winger. This is why his appointment to Trump’s White House team has got people so worried.

Many people (in particular many Republicans) have brushed off the appointment of Bannon, and suggested that as Priebus technically holds the number one role on the White House staff, Bannon won’t hold much influence over policy. However, this is likely to be wrong. To go back to the comparison of Priebus with Andy Card, at the same time that Card was Chief of Staff, Karl Rove served as ‘Senior Advisor to the President’. This role was effectively the same as the Chief Strategist role which Bannon now fills. Everyone knows that although Card served as Bush’s gatekeeper, it was Karl Rove who had significantly more influence on the policy direction of the Bush administration. Although the appointment of Priebus and Bannon was accompanied by a description of the two as ‘equals’, don’t be surprised if Bannon has considerably more influence on policy direction than Priebus, with Priebus included more for his links with Congressional Republicans (which can help get Trump’s policy through Congress) than anything else.

Ultimately, the appointment of both Priebus and Bannon looks to be an attempt by Trump to straddle the divide between the Republican establishment and the populist wave which took him into the White House. This balancing act was evident this weekend as Trump alternated between tweeting about the constructive conversations that he’d had with GOP elders like John Kasich and Mitt Romney, and railing against the election coverage of the New York Times.

What side of the dividing line his policy will fall on is perhaps more uncertain.

However, the fact that he has chosen to appoint Bannon to a White House position at all, suggests that despite the more moderate notes which he has been trying to hit in recent days, Trump intends to pursue at least some of the right-wing populist policies which took him into the White House, perhaps even some of the most extreme ones. The appointment of Bannon should worry everyone, the world over.

Donald Trump speaks at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio.

The GOP has been totally split by this election, failure to reconcile its warring factions could result in its demise.

The campaign for the Republican nominee for President began in earnest on 23 March 2015, when Texas Senator Ted Cruz announced that he would be seeking the Republican nomination for President. One by one, other high-profile Republicans began to announce that they too would seek the nomination, including the likes of Jeb! Bush, Marco Rubio, John Kasich, Chris Christie, Rand Paul, Mike Huckabee, Scott Walker, and Lindsey Graham. In total, seventeen major candidates campaigned for the nomination, making it the largest single field in United States Presidential primary history.

The campaign for the Republican Presidential nomination featured seventeen major candidates, the most in Presidential primary history.

Of course the ultimate winner of this process, and the person who I have deliberately chosen to refrain from mentioning just yet, was businessman and reality-television star Donald J. Trump.

When Trump announced his campaign for the Republican nomination with a press conference at Trump Tower, New York on 16 June 2015, few foresaw his victory, and even fewer foresaw the impact that Donald Trump would have on the wider Republican Party.

Donald Trump announces his run for the Presidency at Trump Tower, New York City on 16 June 2015.

The nomination of Donald Trump as the Republican nominee highlighted a huge fissure in the Republican Party between much of the party elite (Senators, Congressmen and women, and Governors) and the Republican base. Time after time, comments by Donald Trump were disavowed by senior Republicans, but party members kept on voting for him. There was seemingly nothing that those in Washington D.C. could do to stop the Trump Train, with establishment candidates like Jeb! Bush, Marco Rubio, and John Kasich unable to conjure any answer at all to the Trump surge.

The likes of Marco Rubio, Jeb! Bush, and John Kasich had no answer to Trump’s popularity with the Republican base.

This means that we have an election coming up in November where the candidate at the top of the ticket (Trump) is running on a hugely different platform to many of the Republicans lower down the ticket, who are running for seats in Congress, or on State Legislatures. It seems clear that the Republican Party is hugely divided, which isn’t going to help when it comes to competing in subsequent elections.

Now, all ostensibly ‘big-tent’ parties face internal divisions, and it isn’t this which is the problem. Divisions can exist within parties, as long as these divisions are reconciled to the extent that the party avoids a full blown civil war. We have seen this in the United Kingdom with the takeover of the Labour Party by Jeremy Corbyn, causing a civil war between his faction and the so-called ‘Blairites’. Meanwhile, the governing Conservative Party are able to continue increasing their support, despite huge divisions of their own, simply because they prioritise power ahead of internal squabbles. The same is often true in the United States. The Democratic Primary Campaign showed that the Democrats also faced significant internal divisions, with the left-wing Bernie Sanders gaining huge support in his attempt at beating Hillary Clinton to the nomination. However, once Clinton won the nomination, the Democrats put much of this squabbling behind them because they recognised that winning the Presidency was more important than an ideologically pure political party.

Bernie Sanders gained a lot of support in his campaign for the Democratic nomination, but then offered strong support to Hillary Clinton following her win.

The Republicans have manifestly failed to do this, and the Trump campaign can count on one hand the number of senior GOP lawmakers who are actively campaigning for him around the country. This is for a good reason, Trump has done absolutely nothing to gain the support of the party elite, and has instead chosen to shun them at every available opportunity by regularly making disparaging remarks about people like Jeb! Bush, John McCain, and Speaker of the House of Representatives Paul Ryan. On the Democratic side, the Clinton campaign recognised the need to reach out to Bernie Sanders and those who supported him during the primaries, with the result being that Sanders has campaigned around the country on her behalf, leading to a much more comfortable election campaign. Trump on the other hand failed to do this, meaning that throughout the campaign he has been fighting on two frontiers: against the Democrats, and against the Republican Party elite. Given this situation, it is perhaps a miracle that he remains somewhat in contention for the Presidency at this late stage.

This being said, it remains unlikely that Donald Trump will win the Presidency next week. This leaves the Republican Party at a crossroads, where failure to choose the right path could easily result in the demise of the Grand Old Party — at least in the sense of the party being unable to compete for the Presidency.

Could George W. Bush be the last Republican President?

In the Republican Party, this crossroads comprises two very distinct factions. One the one side, you have the moderates, the wing of the party which has dominated the Republican Party throughout most of its existence, particularly at the Presidential level. On the other side, you have what we’ll call the ‘Trumpists’, a movement which has effectively morphed out of the Tea Party movement which has come to the forefront of the Republican Party within the last ten years.

Assuming that Trump loses on 8 November, there are many from the moderate wing of the party who will feel that the Trump experiment has come to an end, and that they will be able to return to something resembling their prior more moderate ideology. However, this will be far easier said than done. The rhetoric emanating from Trump over the course of the campaign is that the election, and indeed the whole political system, is rigged. Therefore, Trump supporters are being primed to not accept the result of next week’s election. If this is the case, and Trump’s most keen supporters refuse to accept the result in significant numbers, then rebuilding the Republican Party of old could prove almost impossible.

The difficulties that the Republican Party face today have been a long time coming, with the grounds for these difficulties perhaps being set in 1980 when the Republicans returned to presidential power with Ronald Reagan.

Ronald Reagan won the 1980 Presidential Election with a hugely different electoral coalition to the one which traditionally supported Republican Presidential candidates.

This was done with an almost completely different electoral coalition than that which usually supported the Republicans, with Reagan’s supporters encompassing many evangelical Christians and white working-class ex-Democrats. These new party members were in sharp contrast to the existing pro-business conservatives who made up the Republican Party. More recently, these divisions have been manifested in the rise of the Tea Party movement, which mostly occurred during the 2010 midterms, although it could be said that the 2008 selection of Sarah Palin as John McCain’s running-mate also helped to usher the Tea Party onto the national stage.

The selection of Sarah Palin as John McCain’s 2008 running-mate helped to usher the Tea Party onto the national stage in the 2010 midterms.

With the emergence of the Tea Party, the moderate wing of the GOP effectively lost control of the primary process. This has led to many Tea Party backed candidates winning Republican primaries and then getting trounced by their Democratic opponents in Congressional races (remember Christine O’Donnell?), although this being said there have also been many Tea Party backed candidates who have made it into Congress due to their standing in safe Republican seats. One of the most notable of these was Tea Party candidate Dave Brat who challenged then Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor for his Congressional seat in Virginia in a primary prior to the 2014 midterms. In a huge upset, Brat defeated Cantor 55.5%-44.5%, and with this Cantor became the first ever House Majority Leader to lose his seat in a primary challenge.

Tea Party backed candidate Dave Brat was able to defeat House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in 2014.

The Tea Party takeover of the Republican Party, particularly in terms of their House of Representatives group, caused huge problems for the moderate party elite. It was effectively this that caused the resignation of Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner, with the Tea Party wing kicking up a huge fuss if Boehner so much as considered compromise with President Obama and the Democrats. This led to the Republican Party being forced to shift further to the right of the ideological spectrum in order to appease the Tea Party faction, and by extension the grassroots of the party. This has culminated in the election of Donald Trump as the Republican candidate for President, and what is effectively an existential crisis for the Republican Party.

The Tea Party caused huge problems for John Boehner during his time as Speaker of the House.

Given that this Tea Party wing of the party is totally unelectable on the national stage then the answer would seem pretty straightforward. If asked the question: which way should the Republican Party go? then you would expect any rational person to suggest that they go the way of the moderates, i.e. those who have some chance of winning the Presidency. However, it is not that simple. Those who vote in the Republican primaries are the party grassroots, and as I said previously this group are on a completely different wavelength ideologically to those in the moderate wing of the party. It is these in the party grassroots who are relied upon to campaign when it comes around to elections, and so to a certain extent it is very important to be able to keep them onside. In addition, the problem is further complicated by the Conservative ideologues who populate the likes of Fox News, Breitbart, and Conservative talk radio. It is these individuals who effectively control much of the modern Republican Party and to whom Republican politicians are forced to pander if they wish to appeal to their grassroots supporters, indeed the Chief Executive of Donald Trump’s Presidential campaign is Stephen Bannon who is on leave from Breitbart for the duration of the campaign. The likes of Fox News commentator Sean Hannity, and radio hosts Rush Limbaugh, Alex Jones, and Laura Ingraham have been particularly keen backers of Trump, and it is these people who set the tone in the modern Republican Party.

This group could soon include Trump himself, if he launches ‘Trump TV’. It has been suggested that his son-in-law and de-facto campaign manager, Jared Kushner, has been attempting to drum up support for this, although naturally when asked Kushner denied it. In any case, the Conservative media will go a long way to deciding which way the Republican Party goes. It seems extremely unlikely that following a Donald Trump loss, they will simply roll over and allow the moderates to take back the party. If anything, it is more likely for the Tea Party wing of the GOP to blame to moderates, and suggest that the party needs to shift even further right.

In short, there seems little chance that the two factions of the Republican Party will reconcile. What this means, is that they could instead split.

The possibility of a split in the party has been suggested by several high-profile moderate Republicans, perhaps most notably by Steve Schmidt who was a key advisor on George W. Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign, and who managed John McCain’s 2008 campaign for the Presidency. In an interview with Vox, Schmidt said:

I think the Republican Party has an outstanding chance of fracturing. There will be the alt-right party; then there will be a center-right conservative party that has an opportunity to reach out, repair damage, and rebuild the brand over time. America, ideologically right now, is a centrist country — it used to be a center-right country — but it’s by no means a Bernie Sanders country. Not even close. The market will demand a center-right party.

There seems little doubt that a split like this would indeed be possible. If someone with no knowledge of American politics were to compare the views espoused by Donald Trump during his Presidential campaign with the views of some moderate Republicans, perhaps Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona and Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois, then it would be unlikely that they’d guess that Trump was technically part of the same party as Flake and Kirk. This means that the landscape is ripe for a split, and it seems unlikely that either of the two factions would be particularly adverse to this outcome. Indeed, the aforementioned Flake has himself said that if the Republican Party doesn’t undergo a dramatic shift in policy and tone then they will consign themselves to “political oblivion”. Given that the grassroots supporters of the Republican Party won’t tolerate this kind of policy change, a split seems the only option.

Arizona Senator Jeff Flake has suggested that the Republican Party need to undergo a dramatic policy shift if they are to remain electorally viable on the national stage.

However, the problem with a split is that it would be highly likely that it would end the possibility of a Republican being elected as President for a generation. The first-past-the-post electoral college system for electing the US President means that third-parties have almost no chance at all of gaining electoral votes. The effect of the Republican Party splitting would be that their vote would also be split, making a Republican President an impossibility.

A split would likely consign the Republican Party (and any new party) to the electoral dustbin. If the Republican Party is serious about winning the Presidency then it needs to unite and reconcile the more conservative wing of the party with the moderate wing. Because running on a moderate platform is the only way to win the Presidency. This particularly the case in modern America where demographic changes mean that the electoral map is skewed more and more in favour of the Democratic Party. The likes of Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Colorado tend to be touted as swing states, however statistically it looks as though it would be fair to classify these states as safe Democratic. Even Texas, once the bastion of Republican support, is turner bluer every year thanks to a rapidly increasing Hispanic population flexing its political muscles. These changes are making it more and more difficult for even a moderate Republican Party to win the Presidency, meaning that an ‘alt-right’/Tea Party Republican Party has absolutely no chance of national success.

It has been rumoured that Ohio Governor John Kasich is already preparing another bid for the Presidency in 2020.

As the aforementioned Steve Schmidt has said: “there’s no question that Republicans — as an institution and what we’re led by — are unfit to run the country, or to govern the country.” And he’s absolutely right. For rational, moderate voters, the Democrats are the only option. For liberals like myself this is great at first glance, but history shows that a lack of credible political opposition isn’t good for anyone, and ultimately leads to inefficient government.

For the Republicans the task is simple, they must take a more moderate path and stop obsessing about settled social issues that don’t concern the wider electorate. Failure to appeal to the wider election will result in the demise of the party of Lincoln, which is still affectionately known as the Grand Old Party.

With the debates over and only a couple of weeks until the Presidential Election, the race is hotting up. Here’s my prediction for how each state will vote, and whether Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump will win in November.

Alabama

Doesn’t even need to be discussed. Has voted Republican in every Presidential Election since 1976, and this won’t change now.

Prediction: Trump.

Alaska

Typically a safe Republican state, and the last time Alaskans voted Democrat was 1964. Although polls suggest the race here is closer than normal this time around, it look likely that Trump will still win relatively comfortably.

Prediction: Trump.

Arizona

Typically Arizona is a relatively safe Republican State, although Arizonans did vote for Bill Clinton in 1996, therefore its definitely possible to turn the State. Polling suggests that this election could be the first since 1996 where Arizona turns blue. The latest polling by the Arizona Republic puts Clinton five points ahead, whilst the RealClearPolitics average has Clinton 1.5 ahead, making it look like a Clinton victory is coming in Arizona.

Prediction: Clinton.

Arkansas

Arkansas almost always votes Republican. They did vote for Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996, but that was only because he was previously the State Governor. Polling for this years race has consistently suggested that Trump leads by over twenty points here, and so the result here is a foregone conclusion.

Prediction: Trump.

California

California is one of the safest Democratic states, and hasn’t voted Republican since the days of Ronald Reagan. This will be an easy Clinton win, probably by around twenty points.

Prediction: Clinton.

Colorado

Typically considered one of the swing states, Colorado is usually won by the ultimate election winner, with President Obama having won the state in both 2008 and 2012. Polling suggests that Clinton has a relatively comfortable lead here, with the RealClearPolitics average giving her an advantage of 8%.

Prediction: Clinton.

Connecticut

Has voted Democratic in the last six Presidential Elections and it would be very unlikely for the result to differ this time around. A comfortable Clinton win.

District of Columbia

Has always voted Democrat, will do so again this time around.

Prediction: Clinton.

Florida

Often described as the swingiest of all swing states, it was victory in Florida which won the Presidency for George W. Bush in 2000 despite him losing the popular vote to Al Gore, and it could be similarly significant this time around. Florida normally votes for the winner, with 1992 being the last time it didn’t. Obama won here by just 0.9% in 2012, but current polling suggests that Hillary Clinton has a lead of 4% going into the final stages of the campaign. Victory here could ultimately be crucial to her White House bid.

Prediction: Clinton.

Georgia

Georgia hasn’t been won by the Democrats since 1992, but even though it tends to be a relatively safe state for the Republicans, the margins are never huge. In short, it is winnable for the Democrats. Current polling provides a mixed picture, with most polling suggesting that Donald Trump is holding a slim lead, but others showing that Hillary Clinton has pulled ahead. Although Georgia can currently be considered a toss-up, I am doubtful that it is really a State that the Democrats can win, and there are certainly easier Republican targets for them to aim at (Arizona for example). At the moment it looks as though Trump will hold on here.

Prediction: Trump.

Hawaii

One of the safest Democratic states of all, Hawaii has only voted Republican in Presidential Elections twice in its history. Clinton will win comfortably here.

Prediction: Clinton.

Idaho

The last time Idaho was won by a Democrat was in 1964, and it’s been a safe Republican State ever since. There is no chance of that changing.

Prediction: Trump.

Illinois

A safe Democratic State which hasn’t voted Republican since 1988. Current polling puts Clinton close to twenty percent ahead of Trump.

Prediction: Clinton.

Indiana

Not considered a swing state, Indiana tends to be strongly Republican. However, the Hoosiers did vote narrowly for President Obama in 2008, before swinging sharply back toward the Republicans four years later. The RealClearPolitics polling average suggests that Trump has a lead of five percent, and although this may lessen as we near the end of the race, it looks as though he will hold on.

Prediction: Trump.

Iowa

Iowa is currently considered a battleground state, but Iowans have in fact voted Democrat in six of the past seven Presidential elections. However, current polling suggests that could be about to change. The latest polling suggests that Trump has pulled into a four point lead, however Hillary Clinton looks as though she is gaining support here, and by the time the election comes around she should probably have taken the lead. In any case, the margin here looks set to be one of the narrowest in this election.

Prediction: Clinton.

Kansas

One of the safest Republican States that there is. There is no question about who will triumph here.

Prediction: Trump.

Kentucky

Tends to vote Republican, although did vote for Bill Clinton in both 1992 and 1996. Trump has a very comfortable lead in the polls here, and it will remain that way.

Prediction: Trump.

Louisiana

Another Southern State which voted for Bill Clinton in both 1992 and 1996, but otherwise a safe Republican State. Looks set to be another comfortable Republican victory here.

Prediction: Trump.

Maine

One of only two States (the other being Nebraska) who don’t allocate their Electoral College votes on an ‘all or nothing’ basis. In Maine, the statewide winner gets two electoral votes, with one electoral vote up for grabs for the winner of each of Maine’s Congressional districts. As of yet this hasn’t resulted in a split electoral vote, and Maine has voted Democrat in the last six Presidential elections. But current polling suggests that the race is much more competitive this year than in previous years, with Clinton sitting on a five percent statewide lead (a significant fall from the fifteen percent margin President Obama led Mitt Romney by). But, although Clinton leads statewide, Trump leads in by around ten percent in Maine’s Second Congressional District, which would give him one electoral vote.

Prediction: Clinton (3 votes), Trump (1 vote).

Maryland

Very safe Democratic state which Hillary Clinton will win with ease.

Prediction: Clinton.

Massachusetts

Voted Democrat in the last seven Presidential elections, and a very safe Democratic state this time around. Another easy Clinton win.

Prediction: Clinton.

Michigan

During the Republican Primary Campaign, Michigan was a State picked by Trump as one he felt he could capture from the Democrats. Although Michigan has voted Democrat six presidential elections, Trump felt that as a State that was significantly affected by the financial crash, it could be his for the taking. However, it is looking as though this confidence was misplaced, and polling suggests that Clinton has a lead of about eleven percent here. Michigan will remain a safe Democratic state for now.

Prediction: Clinton.

Minnesota

The last time Minnesotans didn’t vote Democrat in a Presidential election was 1972, when Richard Nixon won a landslide victory. Although Hillary Clinton is leading here in the polls, it is looking much closer than usual. President Obama won Minnesota by ten percent in 2008, and by seven percent in 2012, Hillary Clinton currently leads by only around five percent. Nonetheless, it looks as though she will hold on, and carry the State.

Prediction: Clinton.

Mississippi

One of the safest Republican States out there. An easy Trump win.

Prediction: Trump.

Missouri

Missouri has voted Republican more than Democrat in recent years, however it does have a relatively good record at picking the overall winner. However, this was lessened in recent years, John McCain carrying the state by just 0.1% in 2008, and Mitt Romney winning comfortably in 2012. Polling suggests that Trump leads in Missouri by about 5–8%, and expect it to stay this way on polling day.

Prediction: Trump.

Montana

Montana has only voted for two Democrats in the last fifty years, and it looks sure to stay red this year. Trump will win comfortably.

Prediction: Trump.

Nebraska

In the same way as Maine, Nebraska allocated its votes by Congressional district with one for the winner of each of these, plus two for the statewide winner. A split has only occurred once, when President Obama narrowly won the Second Congressional District in 2008. The Clinton campaign has put a lot of money into the Second Congressional District, and it looks as though they may be able to replicated Obama’s 2008 success. The overall State vote will be comfortably won by Trump.

Prediction: Trump (4 votes), Clinton (1).

Nevada

A true swing state, Nevada tends to be one of the best predictors of the overall winner. The last time Nevada didn’t vote for the overall winner was 1976, where it voted for Gerald Ford ahead of Jimmy Carter. This year, most polling conducted in the State has given Hillary Clinton a relatively secure lead, with the current polling average giving her a 4.2% advantage in a three-way race. Expect it to stay this way on election day.

Prediction: Clinton.

New Hampshire

New Hampshire has voted Democratic in five of the last six elections, and although John Kerry carried the State in 2004, it generally has a good record of picking the overall winner. It is a State which Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson suggested he could have a chance of taking on election day, but his challenge seems to have fallen by the wayside a little. Clinton holds a comfortable lead here, and it looks set to remain that way.

Prediction: Clinton.

New Jersey

Although New Jersey has a Republican Governor, the former Republican Presidential candidate Chris Christie, it has voted Democrat in the last six Presidential elections. Polling suggests that Hillary Clinton has a twenty point lead here, and there is no way this will change.

Prediction: Clinton.

New Mexico

New Mexico is typically a Democratic State, and has voted this way in five of the past six presidential elections. Nonetheless, as a previous Governor of the State, it was a target for Gary Johnson. However, it looks like Clinton has done more than enough to win it, with polls suggesting that she holds a comfortable lead at this stage.

Prediction: Clinton.

New York

A safe Democratic State which hasn’t voted Republican since the days of Ronald Reagan. Despite Donald Trump suggesting early on the campaign that as a New York native he stood a chance here, polling has suggested otherwise. Clinton will win comfortably.

Prediction: Clinton.

North Carolina

A battleground state, North Carolina tends to be Republican more often than Democrat. Having said that, the State was carried by President Obama in 2008, only to be lost to Mitt Romney four years later. This year, Clinton has generally been in the lead here, but it has been very, very close. The latest poll gives her an advantage of just two percent. Despite this narrow lead, she has probably done enough to hold on.

Prediction: Clinton.

North Dakota

Very safe Republican State which has voted Democrat only once in the past 76 years.

Prediction: Trump.

Ohio

In recent years, Ohio has been a very strong predictor of the overall election winner. Since 1944, Ohioans have voted for the losing candidate just once, when in 1960 they selected Richard Nixon ahead of John F. Kennedy. Polling in Ohio for this race has constantly flitted between Clinton and Trump, and both candidates have held leads of up to seven points here at some point in this election. The current RCP Polling average gives Trump a lead of 0.6%, but recent polls have been tied suggesting that Clinton is gaining momentum here. I think that she has momentum enough to carry the state.

Prediction: Clinton.

Oklahoma

Has voted Republican in all but one of the Presidential Elections here since 1948, will definitely vote Republican again.

Prediction: Trump.

Oregon

Was a relatively strong Republican state until 1988, and since then has voted exclusively Democrat in Presidential elections. Polling suggests Clinton leads by about ten points here, and will win comfortably.

Prediction: Clinton.

Pennsylvania

Commonly considered a swing state, but in recent elections Pennsylvania has been carried by the Democratic candidate. This will continue this time.

Prediction: Clinton.

Rhode Island

Safe Democrat, and has only been won by the Republican candidate for President twice in the last fifty years. Easy Democratic win again.

Prediction: Clinton.

South Carolina

A safe Republican State which hasn’t voted Democrat since 1976 (when Jimmy Carter who was from neighbouring Georgia was on the ticket). Will definitely vote Republican again this time around.

Prediction: Trump.

South Dakota

Very safe Republican state which hasn’t voted Democrat since 1964.

Prediction: Trump.

Tennessee

In the last two elections, Tennessee has been carried by the Republican candidate for President, but other than this and 1960, the State has sided with every Presidential Election winner since 1928. However, evidence suggests that the State has become more Republican in recent years, and can now be considered safe.

Prediction: Trump.

Texas

Texas is usually a reliable Republican State, and has voted this way in every election since 1980. In 2012, Mitt Romney won here by almost sixteen percent. However, recent polls have suggested that the State is now in play for the Democrats, and that Trump’s lead here is down to around two or three percent. However, given the dominance of the Republican Party here, it would be a really tough ask for Clinton to win. I expect the Republicans to hold on, but the gains made here in this presidential election could prove very helpful to the Democrats in 2020 or 2024.

Utah

Utah is one of the oddest states in this years election. Usually a very safe Republican state, the State’s high Mormon population have not warmed to Trump at all, and the Republican candidate only came third in the caucus here earlier this year, behind Ted Cruz and John Kasich. Enter independent Presidential candidate Evan McMullin, a former Republican aide in the House of Representatives. Recent polling has put support for McMullin in Utah as high as 29 percent, just one percent adrift of Donald Trump. Although polls tend to overestimate support for third-party candidates early on in presidential races, they tend to be pretty accurate later on. Therefore, we should be able to be pretty confident that McMullin can hold on to this support, or increase it. McMullin has the advantage of being able to focus his campaigning efforts on Utah, whilst Donald Trump has to travel all around the country as part of his campaign. Therefore, with only a few percent to make up, I think that McMullin can do it and become the first third-party candidate since George Wallace in 1968, to carry a state.

Vermont

From 1856 to 1988, there was only one occasion that Vermont wasn’t carried by the Republican candidate for President, in 1964 when the State voted for Lyndon B. Johnson ahead of Barry Goldwater. However, since 1992 the state has been reliably Democratic. In addition, the Democrats could benefit from Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who is campaigning hard for Clinton. All in all, Vermont will be an easy Clinton win.

Prediction: Clinton.

Virginia

From 1953 until 2004, Virginia was a safe Republican State, and was only carried by the Democrats once in this period. However, in 2008 and 2012, President Obama won here, both times by around five percent. Virginia has been considered a key state throughout this election campaign, and was perhaps one of the main reasons that the Clinton campaign chose former Virginia Governor (and now Senator) Tim Kaine to be Hillary Clinton’s running-mate. Polling suggests that this move has paid off, and Clinton holds a strong lead here in the run-up to election day.

Prediction: Clinton.

Washington

Has voted Democrat in the past seven presidential elections, and the Democrats have a strong advantage here again. Will be an easy Clinton win.

Prediction: Clinton.

West Virginia

West Virginia was won by Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis in the 1988 Presidential Election, and held by Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996. However, since then it has been reliably Republican, and the last three Presidential Elections have seen Republican landslides here. Expect another Republican landslide this time around.

Prediction: Trump.

Wisconsin

Often considered a battleground state, but has actually voted Democrat in the past seven Presidential elections. Clinton leads here comfortably, so expect the same this time.

Prediction: Clinton.

Wyoming

Reliably Republican, and has voted Democrat just twice since 1944. Will be an easy Republican win.

Prediction: Trump.

As you can see from the above graphic, the following predictions would result in Hillary Clinton winning a commanding victory in the Electoral College. As for the popular vote, I do not expect the margin to be as large as Clinton’s margin of victory in the Electoral College suggests. In 2012, President Obama beat Mitt Romney by just 3.9 percent in the popular vote. If the polls are to be believed, and they sound believable, then the popular vote margin in this election will be greater. Although Hillary Clinton is doing slightly worse than Obama in many of the North-Eastern Democratic strongholds, she is doing considerable better in many of the Southern states. In 2012, Romney won most of these by double figure margins. Texas was won by more than fifteen percent, Arizona by eight, Missouri by nine, Idaho by almost 32. In this election, these margins will be much, much narrower. Given this, it would be unsurprising to see Clinton’s lead in the popular vote getting closer to seven or eight percent, maybe even ten if she does particularly well on the day.

But, it is the Electoral College that matters, and in the Electoral College Clinton is set to win comfortably, consequently winning the Presidency.

With the Presidential Election on November 8, we’ll find out soon enough whether these predictions are correct.

Expect Trump to go on the attack from the beginning, in an attempt to make up some of this ground. It would be no surprise to see Trump continue his claims that the election is being rigged against him by the media. Given that this debate is being moderated by Chris Wallace from FOX News, it is perhaps less likely that Trump calls the moderation biased than he did in previous debates. However, Wallace is a registered Democrat (although he says that this is just so he can vote in the primaries) and he did say earlier this year that he felt the media weren’t hard enough on Donald Trump.Therefore, if Trump feels that he’s losing the momentum, don’t be overly surprised if he decides to claim that everyone is ganging up on him, as did in the first debate when he suggested that it was “three against one”, with Clinton, and moderators Anderson Cooper and Martha Raddatz all ganging up against him. A repeat of a similar scene would not be unexpected.

In addition, with the continual dumping of John Podesta’s hacked emails by Wikileaks, expect information gleaned from these to make up a large proportion of Trump’s attacks. The emails which suggested Clinton knew CNN debate question in advance during the Democratic Primary feed into his rigged election narrative. In addition, the revelation that the government of Qatar (who have a sketchy human rights record) had donated $1 million to the Clinton Foundation could prove slightly embarrassing to Clinton. Trump claims that these emails have been completely ignored by the media. He is wrong. The media have reported them, and in normal times they would be front page news. However, the recording of Trump’s derogatory remarks on the set of Access Hollywood in 2005, and other reports of sexual misconduct, have drowned out the stories about Clinton. This means that this final debate is the only chance Trump will have to confront Clinton about these allegations.

One thing notable about this debate, is that a full fifteen minute section will be devoted to the topic of immigration. It was surprising how little immigration was discussed during the previous two debates, and it was quite surprising that Trump didn’t look to steer the conversation towards one of his stronger topics. This debate will give Trump the opportunity to talk about one of his keynote policies: the wall on the US-Mexico border. Of course, this debate also gives an opportunity for this policy to be properly scrutinised. It seems pretty obvious that building a wall on the whole border is completely unrealistic. For a start, we’re talking about a full-blown wall, not just a fence. This means that the cost will be completely exorbitant, with it having been estimated that costs could rise at high at $25 billion. In addition, the wall would have to cover a border which is almost 1,900 miles long. Much of this land isn’t owned by the US Government, which would push the cost even higher. All in all, the policy of building a wall on the US-Mexico border is completely unrealistic. This perhaps explains Trump’s reluctance to bring it up in a debate, as he realises that it would be picked apart by Clinton and the moderators. Nonetheless, it seems likely that this debate will force him to discuss it. Whilst the issue will likely further energise his base, it seems unlikely to be one which will gain him any undecided voters. I mean, if you wanted a wall on the US-Mexico border, then surely you’d be supporting Trump already?

These undecided voters, are who Trump chiefly needs to target in this debate. With polling suggesting he is six points behind Clinton, and this being the final televised debate, he is rapidly running out of opportunities to appeal to undecided voters. This is where a debate strategy that involves continuous attacks on Clinton could fall flat. Undecided voters are tired of hearing about this. Instead, they want to hear about policy. With debate topics including: debt and entitlements, the economy, and foreign hot spots; both candidates have a chance to show off their policy ideas, in an attempt to woo some of these undecided voters. If Trump’s policy knowledge is as lacking as it was in the first debate, then he could well seriously struggle with this.

As well as appealing to swing voters, Trump needs to try and persuade the traditional GOP supporters, who are deserting him in droves, to vote for him in November. Polling currently suggests that traditionally safe Republican states such as Arizona, Georgia, Utah, and even Texas, are now considered toss-ups. It is the polling from Texas which will have most alarmed the Trump campaign. Although, there is a growing Hispanic population in Texas, it was still considered to be safe. Indeed, just one month ago Trump had a lead of eleven points in Texas, but this has now fallen to just four points, which is within the margin of error. Trump needs to be clear on his commitment to traditional Republican policies, otherwise he risks losing these kind of states. Given that he is already up against it in the swing states, losing perceived ‘safe’ states would be disastrous.

Equally, Trump has to ensure he appeals to those in the key swing states of Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, and Iowa. All in all, this means that Trump has to carry out an unenviable balancing act, to try and keep voters from many very different constituencies on side.

Given these competing priorities, it would be no surprise to simply see Trump fall back on his usual tactic of insulting the competition, but not actually offering much substance. He has already announced the slightly baffling news that he has invited President Obama’s half-brother, Malik Obama, to attend the debate. Malik has previously said that he supports Trump, but this invite feels just like a publicity stunt, much the same as when Trump invited Bill Clinton’s accusers to the last presidential debate. The stunt didn’t have an impact then, and it isn’t going to work now. Trump has a misguided knack of attacking people who aren’t on the ballot, at the last debate it was Bill Clinton, throughout the past week it has been Paul Ryan, and at this one it looks as though it will be Barack Obama. This isn’t going to do anything to help Trump in this election, and seems totally unnecessary.

Overall, this debate gives Trump one final chance to appeal to undecided voters in the swing states. This is the most important thing for his campaign, and is absolutely what he should be focusing on. However, things like inviting Malik Obama to the debate suggests that Trump is going to fall back on his strategy of getting the odd good soundbite. This hasn’t worked so far as a way of persuading swing voters to back him, therefore there seems no reason that it will work now. For populist actions like this, Trump can use his mass rallies to energise his base. There seems little point in using the final presidential debate to do what he can do in fifteen minutes at one of his mass rallies. Instead he must use his debate to put forward some substantial policy, or his chances in this election are numbered. The indications suggest that once again Trump will avoid actual policy, and as a result the Hillary Clinton campaign must be licking their lips, a result like this couldn’t be more perfect for them, as it further consolidates Clinton’s position as the only candidate in this race who has put forward any real policy.

With Clinton’s poll numbers now pretty good, all she has to do is turn up and perform as competently as she did in the first two debates. For Trump, he must now put forward some proper policy, or he has got no chance.

You may have seen this week’s polling in Utah which suggested that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were tied in the State, each with 26 percent support. For Clinton to be tied with Trump is what is usually considered a safely Republican state is strange in itself, but what is even stranger is that both major party candidates could muster only 26 percent support each, with third-party candidates being supported by the remaining Utahns.

Independent candidate Evan McMullin was found to have 22 percent support. Add to this that Libertarian Party candidate, Gary Johnson, is polling at around 14 percent, and Utah is perhaps becoming one of the more interesting states to watch in this Presidential election. This is odd for a state which was expected to be safely Republican. Indeed, the last time Utah didn’t vote Republican in a Presidential election was 1964.

Why is Donald Trump yet to secure Utah?

There are several factors which have contributed towards Trump’s failure to secure Utah.

We can point to the recent release of more evidence of lewd behaviour by Trump, including the release last Friday of a tape of Trump’s 2005 appearance on Access Hollywood. However, the roots of Trump’s lack of support in Utah actually began much earlier than this.

Utahns never particularly warmed to Trump or Trumpism. In the Utah Republican Caucus Trump could only come third, receiving just 13.82 percent of the vote, and finishing behind Ohio Governor John Kasich and the winner, Texan Senator Ted Cruz. Generally, this has been attributed to the skepticism of Mormons (who comprise a large proportion of Utah’s population) towards Trump, with many Mormon’s being angered by Trump’s criticism of Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith whilst on the campaign trail. Nevertheless, it was still expected to be a state which the Republican nominee would be able to count on come the general election. But, this has perhaps been changed by Evan McMullin entrance into the race.

Ted Cruz won Utah’s Republican Caucus.

McMullin is running as an independent, but is associated with the Republican Party. After ten years working for the CIA, he worked for Goldman Sachs, before becoming a senior advisor for the Republicans in the House of Representatives. McMullin was born is Utah and is a Morman. This has led to many Utah Republicans flocking to support him (as he is considered a ‘real’ Republican) ahead of the divisive Donald Trump.

Could McMullin win Utah?

The short answer here is, yes, he could. Despite extremely low name-recognition, McMullin is already polling at between 20–22 percent, and is therefore closing in on Trump and Clinton. With the release of these polls, his name recognition will have undoubtedly increased, which will help his candidacy.

But, whether McMullin can get over the line in Utah may depend on one person: fellow Mormon Mitt Romney. Romney’s popularity and influence in Utah cannot be overstated. In 2012, Romney won the Utah Republican Primary with an astonishing 93.1 percent of the vote, and he then won 72.62 percent of the Utah vote in the general election. In addition, Mitt Romney chose to endorse Ted Cruz in Utah’s 2016 Republican Caucus. Cruz subsequently won 69.46 percent of the vote.

Mitt Romney is hugely popular and influential in Utah.

McMullin has already benefited from Romney’s help, and is said to be using an email list cultivated by Romney’s 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns. But, if Romney were to endorse McMullin then this could allow him to win the state. Romney is someone who Utahns clearly listen to very closely, and if he is to suggest that they should vote McMullin over Trump, it is likely that many would listen.

Could McMullin become President?

Surely none of this speculation matters, right? I mean, McMullin has absolutely no chance of becoming President. For a start, he’s only on the ballot in eleven states, making it almost mathematically impossible for him to get the 270 electoral votes required to win in the electoral college. So this means he can never become President, right?

Wrong!

Whilst McMullin has no chance of an outright victory in the Presidential election, his winning Utah could be enough to prevent either of Clinton or Trump winning the 270 electoral votes required to win in the Electoral College. If the Electoral College is deadlocked, then the 12th amendment mandates how the election is decided. The top three candidates (that is, the three with the most electoral votes) are sent to the House of Representatives. Each State delegation in the House receives one vote, and casts it for their favoured candidate. The candidate with the most votes becomes President.

Given that the Republican Party controls thirty-three of the House’s state delegations, you would think that this would point to a Trump victory. However, Republicans have been deserting Trump in droves in the past week. In addition, who knows what the Republicans majority in the House will look like after 8 November. In this situation, the Republican Party in the House would likely be very divided. It may be that many Republicans choose to go for McMullin in order to negate the possibility of a Clinton victory. Whilst many Democrats may consider McMullin as a ‘lesser evil’ when compared to Trump, and so could support him. In any case, in the very unlikely event that the Electoral College is deadlocked, McMullin would have a pretty good chance of winning the Presidency. Likewise, the same could be said of Libertarian Gary Johnson if he is able to win either New Mexico or New Hampshire (although both of these states are looking pretty safe for Clinton at the moment).

Conclusion:

Evan McMullin is not going to become President. The likelihood of the Electoral College being deadlocked is very, very low.

However, his success in Utah could still have a key effect on the outcome of this election. Utah is a state that Trump must win if he is to have any chance of winning the Presidency.

Given that Trump is already struggling in such Republican strongholds as Arizona, he cannot afford to lose Utah.

As it stands, Clinton is going to win this election easily. When it comes to the popular vote, although Clinton will likely win, it probably won’t be by a huge margin. I would be surprised if the popular vote margin is that much more than the margin when Barack Obama beat Mitt Romney in 2012.

However, it is the Electoral College which could make Clinton’s victory look huge. She looks set to carry a huge number of states, and if McMullin does win Utah, then this just takes yet another state away from Trump, making Clinton’s task even easier.

1. His unpopularity with minority voters:

Trump’s dismal support amongst minority voters has been well publicised.

Some polling has suggested that up to 80% of Hispanic voters disapprove of Trump. This was also a group which Mitt Romney struggled with in 2012, winning only 27% of Hispanic votes. The latest polling by Pew Researchsuggests that Trump has the support of just 19% of Hispanics, compared with 58% for Hillary Clinton. The significance of this is reflected in the prevalence of Hispanic voters in several swing states, most notably Florida, where Hispanics now make up 15.4% of the electorate; compared to 13.9% in 2012, when President Obama carried the state thanks to his backing amongst minority voters. Hispanic voters also pose a problem for Trump in Arizona. Arizona tends to be considered a safe Republican state, but the RealClearPolitics polling average gives Trump an advantage of just 0.7%, suggesting it definitely isn’t safe in this election. A high Hispanic turnout would certainly have the potential to swing the state in favour of Hillary Clinton.

Trump’s support amongst African-American voters is even worse. A September poll by ABC News and The Washington Post found that 93% of African-American voters favoured Clinton, with just 3% favouring Trump. In 2012, 93% of African-American voters voted for Obama, with 6% choosing Romney. Given that Romney lost significantly, this surely looks ominous for Trump.

2. His inability to unite the GOP:

We have seen over the past few days how much of the Republican Party doesn’t support Trump. Senior party figures like Mitt Romney, John Kasich, and Jeb! Bush had already withheld their support for Trump, but over the weekend the likes of John McCain and Kelly Ayotte rescinded their endorsements, and Leader of the House Paul Ryan said that he would no longer defend Trump. Now Trump has always effectively been running as an independent, and has therefore always been somewhat detached from the rest of the Republican Party. But, given that the Presidential Election is fought on a state-by-state basis rather than with a nationwide popular vote, the ability to be able to draw upon state party machinery is very important. Over the last few days, Trump has done his best to burn his bridges with Senior Republicans, and this will make it extremely hard for him to run an effective campaign, particularly in the latter stages of this election. Few of the Republicans who have disavowed Trump will vote for Clinton. Instead they will stay at home or, cast a useless vote for either Gary Johnson or Evan McMullin. Either way, it’s seriously bad news for Trump.

3. The Democrats Electoral College advantage:

The Presidential Election’s Electoral College system means that national polling can massively overstate the closeness of a presidential race. In 2012, Obama led Romney by an average of only around 0.5% for the last few months of the campaign. However, he ultimately won by 332 electoral votes to 206. There are eighteen states (plus D.C.) which have voted Democrat in every election since 1992, this almost guarantees Clinton 242 electoral college votes, just short of the 270 needed to win. This leaves Clinton only needing to win a couple of the swing states (and she currently leads in all of them) to win. On the other hand, Trump’s road to the White House is much more difficult. He would have to retain all of the states won by Romney in 2012, as well as winning traditional Democratic states like Michigan and Wisconsin to stand a chance. For the most popular of Republican candidates this would be difficult. For Trump, it is nigh on impossible.

4. Significance of the white working-class vote is overstated:

Trump’s rise has been built on his strong support amongst the white working-class, with many saying that this could propel him to the White House. However, they are massively overstating the ability of this group to swing the result of the election. In 2012, Obama got just 36% of the white working-class vote, so the Republican Party’s strong advantage with this group is nothing new. What’s more, most of the white working-class voters that Obama won, lived in safe Democratic states like New York, California, and Illinois. Given that Trump has absolutely zero chance of winning these states, winning white working-class voters who live in them is of no consequence. Therefore, even though Trump will likely win an even higher percentage of the white working-class vote than Romney did, this won’t swing the result in any state, and is therefore of no benefit to Trump’s campaign.

5. Republican women:

In 2012, Mitt Romney won 44% of the female vote, but Trump looks certain to lose a significant portion of this. Trump’s problem with female voters extends to members of his own party. In March, polling by NBC News andThe Wall Street Journal found that 47% of female Republican voters couldn’t imagine themselves voting for Trump. This is hardly likely to have improved given last week’s events. In addition, modelling by renowned election forecaster Nate Silver has suggested that if only women voted, Trump would lose such Republican strongholds as Texas, Georgia, and South Dakota. Given that women are more likely to vote than men, this unpopularity could cause Trump huge problems.

6. John Kasich:

Yes, you’re right, Trump beat John Kasich in the Republican Primary. So surely we should forget about Kasich now? Wrong! Kasich could oddly still be crucial to the result in this election. Kasich is Governor of Ohio, perhaps the most crucial state of all in this election. Indeed, no Republican has ever been elected President without winning Ohio and its eighteen electoral votes. But, current polling suggests that Hillary Clinton leads in Ohio by four percent. A loss here would be devastating for Trump, and it is very hard to see how he could possibly win the election without winning Ohio. Kasich having withheld his support is significant. If Kasich had chosen to endorse Trump during the Republican Primary then Trump would have been able to draw upon the popularity of Kasich among Ohioans (currently over 50% of Ohioans believe Kasich is doing a good job as Governor), to gain statewide support. Instead, Kasich has spent much of the campaign denouncing Trump’s rhetoric. His failure to get Kasich on side may go some way to Trump ultimately losing the most important state in this election.

7. Lacklustre fundraising:

Throughout the campaign, Trump has had to put in a lot of his own money, in part because big GOP donors have been reluctant to fund his divisive campaign. This has meant that the Trump campaign has significantly less money than is really needed to mount a credible nationwide campaign, and is one of the reasons that Trump has had to rely on the free publicity given by the media. This funding deficit is only likely to get worse followingreports that the Republican National Committee is withdrawing funds from Trump in order to concentrate on holding the Senate and the House of Representatives; and will make it extremely difficult for Trump to afford the advertising he needs to make gains in the swing states.

8. Lack of organisation/ground game:

The US Electoral College favours the campaign which is the most organised. There can be little debate that this is Hillary Clinton’s campaign, with the Trump campaign having been characterised throughout by its total lack of organisation.

Although Trump rules the roost when it comes to Twitter, there is little evidence that he has built the digital volunteer networks which are so essential to modern campaigning. In addition, Trump’s campaign staff numbers about one-tenth of Clinton’s. For example, in Ohio the Democrats have around 150 paid campaigners on the ground compared to the Republicans 50. This, combined with the Democrats huge advantage in terms of signed-up volunteers will give Trump a huge advantage.

9. Republican primaries are not representative of the general election:

The huge success of Trump in the Republican primaries does not mean he will be successful in the general election. During the primaries, Trump boasted about how he was bringing loads of new voters into the Republican Party, however polling suggested nearly all of these voters were already committed Republicans. Although they may not have voted in previous Republican primaries, they generally always voted Republican when it came to a Presidential Election. So yes, Trump has expanded the Republican base who vote in the primaries, but he hasn’t succeeded in expanding overall support for the Republican Party. Very few people actually vote in primary elections; Trump may have got fourteen million votes in the primaries (not even a majority amongst Republican Primary voters), but he’ll need around 65 million to win an election, meaning the primaries are almost irrelevant. Even though Trump has boasted that his primary wins in Michigan and Pennsylvania mean that he’s likely to win these states in November, there is no evidence for this. In fact, Clinton leads comfortably in each — by an average of 6.8 percent in Michigan, and by an average of 9.2 percent in Pennsylvania. Trump’s success in the primaries suggests nothing about how successful he’ll be in November. Indeed, it is highly likely that the rhetoric which brought him so much success during the primaries will prove a huge turn-off to the swing voters he needs in order to win the Presidency.

10. Trump can’t resist playing to his base:

In the Second Presidential Debate, Trump didn’t do too badly overall, despite the lack of any sort of policy detail in the answers he gave. But, a feature of the debate was the lack of anything that could appeal to swing voters, and the constant return to populist policies which appeal only to his base. Trump’s fall-back is always immigration, and his pledge to build a wall on the US-Mexican border; but what he doesn’t seem to realise is that these policies don’t appeal to the swing voters he needs. Swing voters want to hear about the economy, energy, healthcare, foreign policy; and Trump has proved that he lacks any sort of policy knowledge on these kinds of issues. In addition, he decided that the debate would be a good time to discuss Bill Clinton infidelities. Voters are sick and tired of hearing about the indiscretions of someone who isn’t even running for office. Once again, Trump is falling into the trap of throwing red meat to his supporters, but not appealing to the voters he needs to win. It’s now surely too late for him to rectify this mistake, and therefore he cannot win.

11. Turnout will be HIGH:

A study released in July by the Pew Research Centre looked at the relationship between voter engagement in the run up to the election, and its ultimate effect on voter turnout. It found that engagement in this year’s election was much higher than in previous years: 80 percent of respondents had thought ‘quite a lot’ about the election; 85 percent said that they were following news on the candidates ‘very closely’; 74% believed that it ‘really matters’ who wins the election; and 60 percent said they were more interested in politics than they were four years ago. When compared with the results of the 2008 survey, these results suggest much higher engagement in this year’s election. 2008 produced the highest voter turnout since 1968 (58.23%). Given the level of engagement in this year’s election, it wouldn’t be beyond the realms of possibility that this is the first election since the 1960s where turnout will reach 60%. In addition, turnout is typically high when there is a large gulf between the two candidates, leading to voters being motivated to vote against one or the other. In this election, it would not be unexpected for Hispanic voters to turnout in record numbers just so that they can vote against Donald Trump.

12. The popularity of Barack Obama:

I know what you’re saying, Barack Obama isn’t running, so why does his popularity matter? The fact of the matter is that Obama’s popularity (55 percent approve of the job he’s doing according to Gallup), means that this election shouldn’t be a change election. If Americans could have four more years of President Obama, then that is what they would likely choose. But they can’t, which means that they’ll go for the next best option, Hillary Clinton.

After Donald Trump’s clear loss in the First Presidential debate two weeks ago and the week that followed for his campaign, tonight’s Presidential debate was always set to be a fiery one. But with the recent release of audio of Trump making lewd and derogatory comments about women during an appearance on Access Hollywood in 2005, tonight’s debate is set to be even more bad tempered than originally expected.

After the release of the tape, what seemed like a constant succession of senior Republicans rushed to condemn Trump’s comments, with many going as far as withdrawing their endorsement. Leader of the House of Representatives Paul Ryan said he was “sickened” by what he had heard, and called off a scheduled joint campaign appearance in Ryan’s home state of Wisconsin. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called the comments, “repugnant, and unacceptable in any circumstance,” and 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney (who had already said that he would not be supporting Trump) said that Trump’s comments “corrupt” America’s image to the world.

Add to this the list of Republican luminaries who announced one by one that they were withdrawing their support for Trump: John McCain, Rob Portman, Condoleeza Rice, Kelly Ayotte, and Mike Crapo to name just a few. Given that so many of these individuals gave their support so reluctantly in the first place, perhaps this was just the kind of incident they were looking for — something to given them an excuse to eject themselves from the trainwreck that Trump’s campaign has become.

Tonight’s debate is realistically the final opportunity Trump has to stay in with a chance in this Presidential race. If he is unable to at least prove to some of the doubters in his own party that he is fit to be President, then he stands no chance of winning in November.

To have any chance of doing this, Trump has to act as Presidential as it is possible to act.

Following his loss in the first Presidential debate, it was widely expected that in the second debate, Trump would look to bring up Bill Clinton’s martial infidelities (and Hillary’s defence of them) as one of his key criticisms. However, after what we heard Trump say earlier this week, he has surely forfeited his right to do this.

Nonetheless, as a man of unlimited self-confidence, expect Trump to go big (sorry, I mean bigly) on Bill Clinton’s infidelities, and for him to completely miss the irony. Indeed he began this assault during the non-apology he gave on Friday, when he said:

“I’ve said some foolish things, but there’s a big difference between the words and actions of other people. Bill Clinton has actually abused women, and Hillary has bullied, attacked, shamed, and intimidated his victims.”

It is perhaps this comment which shows us exactly what we can expect in tonight’s debate. Rather than any real admittance on fault on his part, Trump will do all he can to claim Clinton is worse. Naturally she will return fire, which will make for the bloodiest debate in Presidential election history.

It is hard to see how bringing up Bill Clinton’s infidelities will help Trump. Yes, there is an argument that it will persuade some people that Trump’s 2005 comments aren’t as bad as the reaction has suggested. But, given the sheer vulgarity of what he did say, it is hard to see how this would be possible. Rather than implying that Clinton is unfit for the Presidency, is bringing up her husband’s indiscretions not more likely to stoke sympathy for Hillary Clinton? Not to mention that it has been suggested that the electorate has no desire to hear more about Bill Clinton’s infidelities. In recent polling by Politico, it was found that 56 percent of voters felt that it would be inappropriate for Trump to bring this up during the debate, with only 33 percent feeling it was appropriate. Therefore, Trump’s most likely strategy seems misguided.

Trump’s task is further complicated by the ‘town-hall’ format of tonight’s debate, a format which Trump has little experience in.

Trump’s best moments on the campaign trail have come at his mass rallies, where he is alone on the mic in front of a huge group of adoring fans. When Trump has to interact with others, he tends to find things more difficult. We saw this in the first debate, where Trump couldn’t help but respond to Clinton’s baiting, with this leading to lengthy parts of the debate spent on damaging topics such as Trump’s ‘birther’ theory. Don’t expect this part of Trump’s personality to change anytime soon but, in a town hall debate it could prove far more costly. With the audience asking the questions, who would bet against Trump taking issue with a difficult question asked by an undecided voter? One of the key skills required in a town hall debate is the ability to respect the voter by listening to the question and actually answering it. This is something that Trump has typically found difficult, with his tendency to ignore the question and digress into a monologue about his brilliance, and his tendency to react angrily when faced with criticisms. This is something that he cannot afford tonight. But, given his always limited debate prep, which can’t have been made any easier by this week’s crisis, don’t expect him to have comprehensively fixed these flaws, Trump’s biggest failure may yet be the belief that he has no flaws.

All Clinton needs to do tonight is control the debate. If Trump behaves as expected (i.e in exactly the same way as he has throughout the campaign), then he will dig his own holes, and with tonight’s town hall format all Clinton needs to do is watch as the audience push him down them.